Published: October 22, 2009

I eat feelings. I eat my suitemate’s feelings, my mother’s feelings, Obama’s feelings. Lately (probably because of the change in weather) everyone seems to be depressed, and of course, the burden falls upon my shoulders. Yesterday, I picked at a funfetti cake in between every single one of my meals to relieve this emotional weight, replacing it with physical weight.

I have always been a big eater, but have only realized the effects of my intake since I came to Fordham, when my favorite jeans became part of the pile of scraps I have collected for a future scrapbook project.

My friends and I generally try to live healthily—we don’t buy canned or sugary foods, we run or swim daily and we drink enough water to make us pee every 45 minutes. Our actions are guided in part by health and in part by money. I would rather walk 50 blocks than pay $2.25 for a subway ride; I would rather eat a 33-cent banana than a 99-cent piece of pizza. But, while saving money and healthy living can be compatible (unless you purchase only name-brand soy turkey and vegan scones), there are times when these two aspects of our lives seem mutually exclusive, especially at Fordham.

The problem with this school is not the budget cuts affecting library hours, the attempts to rid the world (or McMahon Hall) of consensual sex or even the precarious Car 4 elevator that favors the 20th floor. No, the issue I have with this school is its generosity with food.

Wherever I turn, I am being offered free pizza, free hot chocolate or free Coldstone. Every day is a Club Day or a Spring Preview or a First Meeting or a Commuter Survey. My friend Patrick and I are constantly in a state of stress and anxiety, suffering from the Catholic sense of charity that has imposed upon us delicious lunches and midnight snacks. I am a poor college student. I don’t have much time to cook. I am always hungry. And yet, I also want to look like an airbrushed celebrity. Where is the justice in these free-flowing chocolate cookies?

Depending upon the time of the month, whether we are low on cash or low in our lives, our decision to evade the free food will change. Sometimes, my friend Bianca and I declare our ephemeral youth, especially how we will never be able to metabolize spring rolls and lemonade when we are older, and thus we pump our fists in the air and yell, “Carpe Diem!” in between mouthfuls of generic pan-Asian food and mass produced CountryTime.

Other times, we resolve to look like Penelope Cruz (or Condoleeza Rice, whose daily workout and diet regiment we have researched), and sacrifice the pseudo-delectable smells of a Sodexo-sponsored event for a poorly cooked meal of boiled spinach and whole-wheat bread.

Once, Bianca even tried to make homemade soup, blending frozen vegetables and water into a miserably green perversion of anything remotely edible. As we gulp down tasteless (or unfortunate tasting) vegetable concoctions, we smile triumphantly, making a toast (with ice water) to our new, healthy lifestyle.

Yet during exam period, when we have exhausted our monetary funds and our physical capacities, we not only submit to free donuts and Subway sandwiches, but actually hoard these goods as though only we know of imminent famine to plague FCLC.

I walked past another superfluously free meal the other day. I am not even sure what the event was, only remembering the familiar anxiety settling in. I looked at Patrick. His face had also paled. “It’s not our faults,” I said, above the loud growl of my stomach. He walked over to the cookies. “If it’s free, it’s negative calories.”

And we had our cake and ate it, too.